Nico
A/N
Gods, I'm a horrible person who hasn't updated forever, but please don't hate me D:
Grace was burdened with the full force of my icy disregard for the entire week. Every time he attempted to speak to me, I made sure to full-on freeze him out. I knew that this could potentially endanger the whole 'Percy-thinks-I-love-Jason' angle, but at that point I was just so fucking over it I didn't even give a damn. It took Grace a while to catch on, but eventually, upon the fourth incidence of me turning and walking the other way in a corridor after I had noticed his presence, the penny dropped and he realised that there was some sort of shit going down.
Which meant he officially had to know what it was.
Funny thing – he never considered that he might be the problem. When he finally cornered me, it was all Percy this and Percy that; Had Percy said something? Had Something happened between the two of us?
My answer – given out in an irritated tone of voice and accompanied by a complimentary death stare – of 'Fuck off' threw him for a few - I'm not sure if it was the swearing or the air of malcontent.
Unfortunately, he quickly regained his absurdly irritating composure, and continued to pester me incessantly, no matter how little information I gave up.
Gods, he was one persistent little bastard.
Everything came to a head when he cornered me in the dining room at the unholy hour of three a.m. God knows what he was doing in there – I, for one, was attempting to consume some food in peace, without Hazel measuring my every bite and shaking her head sadly when she realised I was still eating half as much as everyone else – I knew she meant well, but she deterred me so much I couldn't even stomach my usual amount of food.
So there I was, chowing down on some birthday cake – another reason that I didn't like eating around my half-sister; she didn't believe that any food which contained more sugar than vegetables was true food, while I, on the other hand, very much enjoyed the consumption of beverages that should technically be doubling my body weight.
I was in an okay mood – I'd managed to avoid both Percy and Jason for the entire day, and I'd slept alright the night before (technically two nights ago, really), for once. Admittedly, my attempts at sleep for the current day had gone awry, but that had simply been because I had been completely unable to force myself into anything vaguely resembling a nap, and not because the nightmares had come back.
Obviously, the good mood couldn't last – tall, blonde and probably-handsome-in-the-right-light-I-guess had to saunter onto the scene and ruin everything.
How he managed to creep up on me, I'll never know. It was most probably due to the fact that sane people are generally asleep at three a.m., and his current state of awakeness was completely unprecedented.
But, there was no method I could employ to get away from the crux of the matter – Jason was behind me with his hand on my shoulder, and I had nearly jumped out of my skin at his sudden appearance. I couldn't imagine how I must look – sitting alone at the long dining table, illuminated only by the sparse, dim lamps that lined the walls, stuffing my face full of blue birthday cake.
Gods. I probably looked like I belonged in a mental institution – even more so than usual.
"Hey."
I wanted to grab him by the throat and strangle the life from his body. My heart was thudding so fast that I thought it was possibly going to explode. 'Hey?' Don't give me that bullshit. Gods, why was he up at this hour of the night.
"Gods, why are you up so late?"
I half-turned to survey him, expression sufficiently irritated. In the dim light, I could only see the sharpest angles of him – cheekbones and collarbones and the line of his nose. He looked like he'd been sleeping, and not just lying in wait for me like some creeper. His hair was all tousled, and he had one of those old, loose shirts one – the ones that Piper didn't like him wearing. As I gazed at him, I wondered just why that was. He looked better in a loose shirt – it highlighted just how muscular he was, the contrast of strength and fluidity. The neckline drooped lower, and gave a plentiful view of his collarbone and the vast expanse of golden skin between his neck and –
Gods.
What was I doing?
I choked a little on my cake, grimacing at myself. 'Really?' I asked my brain angrily. 'You're going to think about Grace like that?'
A shiver crawled over my skin, dragging fingers down my spine until I shudder-spasmed.
Ugh. Apparently I wasn't coping with the lack of sleep thing quite as much as I'd thought. This is what always happened – thoughts wandering to places they would generally never dare venture, leading to incidences I would majorly regret once I came back to my senses.
Eyes squeezing shut, nails digging into my palms, deep breath, and I looked back up, only to find that I was being regarded with a somewhat confused, very concerned, expression.
"You okay?" came the query, in a voice low yet light as a whisper.
Hand fluttering in front of my face, I waved away his concerns.
"Yeah. Fine."
Cue awkward silence.
I turned back to my cake – no longer eating it, just sort of picking, rolling the crumbs along the surface of the enamel plate until they formed tiny blue beads. The darkness was oppressive, reducing my world to only two, a world in which silence prevailed. I clung tightly to the hope that he would get the message and up and leave, but - as I was beginning to discover - Grace was one of those people who was only perceptive if they were looking for something they wanted to see.
The all-pervading stillness was broken by a flurry of rustling fabric and soft footsteps, wood scraping against wood until Jason sank to the bench beside me.
No.
No.
This wasn't what you did if you found someone eating blue birthday cake alone in a dankly lit dining room at three in the morning. The correct procedure would be to catch sight of them as you walked in, and slowly back out, filled with the realisation that if they had gone to these sort of measures, they most probably wanted to be left alone.
You did not come join them. Under any circumstances.
But apparently Grace had missed that lesson of Nightlife 101, because now he was gazing soulfully at me, and reaching out to place a hand on my forearm.
"It's okay if you feel like you need to get some air. I understand that. But it's really not good for you to lock yourself away like this."
I did register his words, somewhere in the furthest crevices of my mind, but I was too busy staring at his hand on my skin to really put much thought into them. What was he doing? Why was he touching me? Gods, he knew I hated it when anyone touched me, and yet, his rough, warm palm was pressed against my bare skin, just below the line of my shirt sleeve.
This – this was unprecedented. What was I meant to do? What was the correct response in a situation like this?
I considered the hand for a few seconds more, a furrow burying itself between my brows, before I decided that correct response could go fuck itself. Abruptly, I slid along the bench, away from Grace and his grasping hand, which collapsed to the table with a woody 'thud.'
For a few, tense moments, we stared at one another – me, in disgust, him, in confusion (for it appeared I had made my move in the midst of him pouring out his very heart and soul.
"Don't touch me."
My tone was gruff, and perhaps a little harsher than need be, but it appeared that he wasn't going to get the message unless I kept pounding it through his thick, blonde-hair-clad skull.
"Oh – ah, I'm sorry. I forgot."
Well. At least he was polite about it now. That was something.
Obviously eager to delay the return of the awkward silence, Jason jumped in with a question, a pointed finger indicating the chosen topic.
"So, ah … blue birthday cake? Is it – is that a Percy thing, by any chance?"
With a start, I glanced down at the dismembered piece of party food, which now lay scattered across my plate in a collection of tiny piles.
It actually was a Percy thing. That fact didn't even register anymore – blue birthday cake was just something I ate when I felt nervous, or freaked out, or basically just needed some sort of comfort food. I hadn't even considered whether my enjoyment of the beverage may have more to do with the situation in which I had first consumed it rather than the food itself.
But … that was the real reason why it made me feel better, wasn't it? The subconscious tie to days gone by, when Percy could invite me into his house without the knowledge that I had sold him out, betrayed him to my father, made the worse mistake of my life.
I had been angry, and I had been hurt – those were facts that I could acknowledge. But that still didn't make anything I'd done okay.
It didn't make me feel any better about my choices.
Suddenly, the cake seemed a loss let appealing. With a grimace, I pushed it towards the centre of the table.
"Yeah. I guess it is."
Silence again, but this time it seemed different – not so much awkward, as simply thoughtful. A half-glance at Jason revealed that he had his head tilted a little to the side as he gazed at me, a quirk which I knew meant he was considering something deeply. Hands clasped on the table, he screwed up his nose a little, as though weighting his next movements, before speaking.
"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want. I know I've been a little too involved recently, but I'm just trying to make you happy – you do understand that, don't you?"
I did. No matter how much I disliked it, no matter how irritating his actions were, I knew they all came from the goodness of his heart. Grace was just one of those people – determined to help others, no matter if they wanted him or not. His interpretation of the situation might be skewed and inaccurate, and his actions might piss me off more than anything; but the intentions behind them were pure.
Grudgingly, I nodded.
The transformation was instant – a grin cracked across his face, bright, straight teeth shining like a beacon. He nodded a little, as though confirming something to himself, and leaned forward. Resisting the urge to scoot backwards, I tried to smile – it came out more like a grimace however, the corners of my mouth pulled vaguely upwards and teeth bared. Jason didn't seem hung up on these technicalities, choosing to take it simply as an (yet another!) affirmative gesture.
"Well, that's good then. I'm glad you understand." with a little chuckle and a hand run through hair, he glanced in my direction, in a move that seemed almost … flirtatious?
I felt ill at the thought, and promptly buried it deep, deep down, to a place from whence it would hopefully never resurface. God, I was out to it. Shaking my head, I pushed away from the table, sliding from the bench. It was only as I stood that I remembered just how underdressed I was – a lazy old t-shirt that was almost as back as Jason's in the décolletage-revealing stakes, half-rolled-up jeans, and socks with holes in the toes.
A feeling of heedless embarrassment swept over me, and I ducked my head to hide the fact that my cheeks were tinged pink. It was weird, being seen like this. I felt oddly vulnerable – like I had unwittingly revealed a side of myself that I usually kept so well contained.
It seemed as though Jason was aware of it too – he had half turned at movements, but now he glanced down at his hands, slowly twining his fingers together.
"Well, ah, I need – I need to go sleep now."
There wasn't any real need for speech, but the prospect of leaving without warning seemed strangely unappealing. Oddly, Jason made no reply, simply nodding while continuing to examine his own appendages. I stared at him for a few moments, certain that there would be more to come – but the silence remained. When it became obvious that speech wasn't something that would be happening anytime soon, I turned on my heel, striding towards the doorway. A soft voice stopped me, halted me, and I glanced back to see that my blonde-companion was gazing at me with a soft, expression.
"Nico. I really do mean well. I don't want you to be unhappy – you deserve better. But if you really want me to stop … just say, okay?"
The enormity of his proposal stilled me for a few seconds. Here he was, presenting the very opportunity that I had been wishing for. I hadn't even been forced to utilise begging and/or violence. He'd just … offered it to me.
Maybe I was still half-hallucinating, or perhaps my mind hadn't fully recovered from the shock of him touching me, but for some absurd, senseless reason, I chose not to take the sane option and tell him to cut his shit out. Instead, I simply turned my back on him and covered the rest of the distance to the doorway, until I was though it and out, leaving Jason seated alone in a quavering circle of dim light.
A/N
So … admittedly there was next-to-no humour and a lot of cliché in that chapter
BUT
Romantic Tension
With any luck *fingers crossed* next chapter will contain both
Exciting prospect :D
